The Knights Templar

Read, ibid., p.158.

16

Quoted in Barber, op. cit., p.115.

17

Barber, ibid., p.116.

18

Gestes des Chiprois, pp.252–3; quoted in Barber, op. cit., pp.241–3.

19

Seward, The Monks ofWar (Penguin Books, 1992), p.37.

20

The connection between Lazarus and leprosy is a mysterious one. Lazarus, in John’s Gospel, did not suffer from the disease. It is possible that the Templars used Lazar houses for purposes other than that of treating lepers, knowing that fear of the disease would mean that the houses would remain undisturbed.

21

Barber, op. cit., p.64.

22

For a treatment of children raised in silence, see John Burnside’s novel The Dumb House (Cape, 1997); for the search for the language of Eden, see Umberto Eco’s The Search for the Perfect Language (Blackwell, 1997).

23

Some chronologies list Richard de Bures as the Grand Master between Armand and Guillame. As no list of Grand Masters is definitive, we can assume that either Richard actually was the head of the Order between La Forbie and Guillame de Sonnac’s election in c.1247, or that he was acting as a caretaker Grand Master who would have stepped aside had Armand de Perigord emerged from captivity or until a successor could officially replace him.

24

Barber, op. cit., p.152.

25

Quoted in Read, op. cit., p.228.

26

Flores Historiarum (London, 1890); quoted in Barber, op. cit., p.157.

27

Although the Fall of Acre is usually seen as the end of the Christian presence in the East, there was one remaining Christian stronghold in mainland Syria after 1291, the Templar castle of La Roche Guillame, in the Amanus March, which held out against all odds until 1299. See Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate, The Templars: Selected Sources (MUP, 2002), p.15.

28

Barber, The Trial of the Templars (Cambridge University Press, 1978), p.48.

29

A result of de Nogaret’s attempts to kidnap Boniface VIII at Agnani in September 1303.